Ken Griffin Calls Trump's Tariff Push a 'Disaster,' Says Factory Dream Won't Draw American Workers

Citadel chief executive Ken Griffin said President Donald Trump's tariff-driven push to revive U.S. manufacturing has been a "disaster," stoking inflation and fracturing global supply chains without delivering the promised factory revival. Speaking at the Citadel Securities Future of Global Markets conference, Griffin said the "America First" agenda was flawed from the start, roughly 18 months after Trump's Rose Garden "Liberation Day" address, where the president had promised that "jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country." "To be blunt, like, I hate to say it, but I've been right. It's been pro-inflation," Griffin said. "It has certainly taken supply chains around the world and severed them. And we're not going to industrialize efficiently in our country." Business Insider reported the same remarks, framing the criticism of tariffs on U.S. allies and predicting the policy would hurt Republicans in the midterms.

Griffin's labor-market argument rests on unemployment at 4.2%, which he said leaves few Americans willing to take assembly-line work. "If you have this dream of an industrialized America, number one is most people don't want to live that dream," he said. His view echoes Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi, who noted earlier this year that unemployment among U.S.-born workers had begun to climb, based on a 12-month moving average of seasonally unadjusted data. Zandi argued native-born workers would take such jobs only at far higher wages, which he said would make production uneconomic for many businesses, describing the roles as physically arduous positions that native-born workers "are in no mood to take now."

Griffin proposed automation as the alternative. "We want re-industrialized America to be a really industrialized America with robotics running our factories," he said, framing AI-powered robotics as a route to greater independence on items important to national interests. In September, he announced a $3 billion gift to Carnegie Mellon University Miami aimed at pursuing the "next era of American innovation."

The broader context is substantial. According to the St. Louis Fed, about 12.6 million Americans work in manufacturing, concentrated in electrical and component production. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the sector accounted for 7.4% of total employment in 2025 and is projected to slip to 7.2% by 2035. Manufacturing remains smaller than retail, health care, and state and local government as an employer, yet it still supports millions of jobs, which has prompted pushback against rapid automation. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates proposed a robot tax in an August essay, arguing it would "slow the rush away from human labor a little and raise money for retraining and a stronger safety net," and should be targeted so it does not hinder beneficial AI uses such as medicine and education.

Griffin's remarks add a prominent Wall Street voice to the debate over whether tariffs can restore factory employment or merely raise costs, as investors weigh trade-policy inflation against the promised benefits of reshoring.